300mm f4 IF-ED with 1.4 tc

Peter7100 said:

Can anyone please advise what the image quality is like using a 1.4 tc with the above lens. Also can you please advise if your experience is with using a Nikon tc or a Kenko tc. Regarding the Kenko there appears to be more than one version but do they perform the same?
I have heard some people leave a 1.4 permanently attached to this lens which might suggest hardly any IQ loss. My own experience with TC’s in the past on Canon lenses has not been a good one.

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hark said:

Here is one from a couple years ago with that combo. This image has a great amount of detail.

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Woodyg3 said:

I have that lens with the 1.4 TC always attached. It makes for a very sharp and light 420mm f/5.6. I have an old Nikon TC 14E that I found used. Note that the TC 14E III is not compatible. I highly recommend this set up unless you need VR.

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Peter7100 said:

Thanks for that image. As you say there is plently of detail.

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Peter7100 said:

Thanks for the reply. With that older Nikon TC 14E did you still have full AF on your D7100 at f5.6?

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hark said:

I have my refurbished D7100, 300mm f/4 non-VR lens, and 1.4x TC combo ready to go take one or two pics for you. Later tonight I will try to post the SOOC NEF's and jpeg's in my Dropbox so you can look at the unedited files.

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hark said:

Peter, these aren't going to be quite up to par simply because the AF on this lens is failing similar to how it failed on my 300mm f/4 PF lens. In the past I coupled both of these lenses with my 1.7x TC. Just recently I found out the 1.7x TC isn't supposed to be able to AF with many f/4 lenses. For my lenses, the combo works, but the lenses would hunt quite a bit for subjects in the distance. So I think I've burned out the AF motors. What I can tell you is the sharpness yielded by this refurbished D7100 has been incredible. The sharpness is much better than my D7200 straight out of camera.

Unfortunately I'm having a little trouble navigating Dropbox. I will have to look into an alternative way to share the full size images. Dropbox isn't allowing me to share the files. :sorrow:

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Peter7100 said:

Thanks for trying and all your input. I have been convinced by the responses that this combination will work well. Now the fun starts trying to find a decent copy of the lens and TC. My favoured camera shop in the UK does not have any stock of either. eBay time

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hark said:

Just make sure you don't wind up with this other version of the 300mm. It is the Nikon 300mm f/4 AF ED. It IS a very sharp lens but is slow to focus. Plus it doesn't work with the Nikon TC's (although it's a budget-friendly lens for those who cannot afford the AF-S version).

This is the one to avoid:

https://www.slrlounge.com/oldies-but-goodies-nikon-300mm-f4-af-ed/

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hark said:

Peter, here are a few edited images from today with this combo. My TC is the TC 14E ii which I might have mentioned previously. I use shake reduction in Photoshop because I had elbow surgery and am not the best with holding a non-VR lens steady. All of these are cropped quite a bit - vertical crops from images that were shot in horizontal format. A screen shot of the original NEF is first so you can see how much was cropped. All are cropped by about the same amount. I know you said you decided to go with this combo. Just wanted you to see how amazing this lens/TC really is.

Full size NEF screen shot:
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Edited image of the above NEF:

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Peter7100 said:

Thanks again Cindy, they look great!
I have recently purchased this lens and expecting delivery this Saturday.
Can’t wait to get shooting with it.

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